Afraid of the dark
by Haunted Harlequin
Summary: When the class goes down to the dungeons, Hermione's secret is discovered and Ron has the chance to be the hero. It's better than the summary, I promise!
1. Chapter 1

**OK, this is just a thing that was hanging around in my head for a while. It isn't really timeline or book/movie specific, so don't worry about anything like that. It'll probably be about 4 or 5 chapters long, not really sure yet :s **

**Disclaimer: I don't own these fantastic characters or this amazing school ... yet. Watch out JK. I'll find youu! **

The whispers and mutterings from their classmates swelled around them, making the narrow, damp, downwards-sloping corridor seem even more claustrophobic. Hermione, Ron and Harry were squashed together and, almost hidden by the deep shadows between the (infrequent) torches, Hermione was gripping Ron's hand.

It was the first lesson of the first term of their fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and, as a special treat, Professor Trelawny had brought her class down to the deepest dungeon in order to ' commune with the raw energies of the earth in their purest form ' or something.

"_Hermione ... what is it? ... what's wrong_?_."_ Ron mumbled awkwardly. He wasn't sure what had brought on her clingy-ness, but something was obviously bothering her and he desperately wanted to be the one to provide the support she needed. He was quite a romantic at heart, he felt the need to protect his (hopefully more than) friend, but she was so strong and brave normally that he was often left feeling stupid. The truth was, he was in awe of her, but knew she could do so much better than him and so far, he had been content to be in her life as just a friend. But maybe that was about to change.

"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, startled and suddenly very aware of what she was doing. " Umm...I'm sorry Ron..." she said, trying to extricate her hand from his, but he only held on tighter.

"No. Don't be." Ron said, coming to a halt. They were at the back of the class, and after reassuring Harry that they would be right there, Ron took Hermione's other hand from where it had been covering her spectacular blush and looked directly into her eyes.

"Don't hide from me. What's bothering you?"

"Well..." she began, chewing her lip, "I ... okay Ron, I've ever told anyone this but ... oh Merlin I feel so stupid ..."

"Hey, welcome to my world" Ron joked, trying to break the tension rolling of Hermione in waves.

She smiled weakly up at Ron. "Don't say that Ron, you're brilliant, you just don't _try."_

"I try!" Ron retorted indignantly "I do, it's you never see me cause you're too busy _studying" _

At that, Hermione had to laugh, it was the way he said 'studying', like it was a bad word.

Then she found she couldn't stop.

It wasn't long before Ron joined her, and after a few minutes they were leaning against each other for support, gasping for breath.

"So what was it then ?" Ron eventually managed to say.

"What?" answered Hermione, still delirious from the laughter.

"What was it that was bothering you? Please, you can tell me."

She just shook her head, instantly sober, "You'll just laugh."

"I won't. I promise I won't laugh. Really. You can trust me."

"Well ... I'm afraid of the dark." Hermione whispered, hiding behind her hands again.

"What was that?" asked Ron in his least patronising voice.

"Imafraidofthedark." She rushed out in one breath, still avoiding Ron's gaze.

"One more time please." He thought he had heard her, but needed to confirm it.

"I'M AFRAID OF THE DARK OK!" She yelled, throwing her hands away from her face and showing Ron the angry and embarrassed tears they had been hiding.

"Alright, alright." Ron said defensively, alarmed by her sudden mood shift. "I was just trying to ..."

"JUST SHUT UP RON! YOU'RE SO INSENSITIVE! YOU'RE SUCH A ... SUCH A BOY!"

And with that, she turned on her heel and ran away from Ron, her sobs echoing behind her.

**This is not the end! There's more plot to come!**

**OK, plleeeaaseee plleeaaasseee let me know what you think, reviews are like unicorn blood ( but less icky ) to me! **

**Virtual hugs,**

**Harlequin x**


	2. Chapter 2

**Don't get your hopes up, it's really short :/ sorry**

"What? HERMIONE WAIT!"

Ron ran down the corridor after her retreating back. 'Girls' he thought to himself, 'he would never understand them.'

It was then that he tripped on the uneven paving slabs. Cursing his over sized feet he looked up, Hermione had disappeared round a corner. Damn.

As he rounded the corner he discovered, well, a cross-corridors. Looking down each of the forks, he couldn't see Hermione _anywhere_.

Hmmm...

Well, he wasn't going to find her by just sitting around. What would Hermione do?

Think logically.

Right, well, why was she running away?

Because she was embarrassed.

And why was she embarrassed?

Because she was afraid of the _dark._

Okay . . . so pick the _lightest_ corridor.

Feeling irrationally proud of himself, he set off down the right-hand passage, he would definitely be telling Hermione about this.

When she wasn't mad at him anymore. Not that he was entirely sure _why _she was so mad at him.

He had been running down this corridor for quite a while now and hadn't caught sight of Hermione at all. Stopping for a breather, he listened intently, he was sure he could hear footsteps.

Yes! There were definitely footsteps. Light, quick footsteps coming from somewhere up ahead.

Shaking his head, he ran on, diving down a side passage until he hit a dead end.

Wheeling around, he made to go back to the main corridor, mystified, he was sure he'd heard the footsteps turn in here.

Then the giggling started, young, girly giggling. Very un-Hermione.

This was starting to freak him out a bit.

It was getting louder, no, _closer._

As he watched, a little girl ran out of the left wall and straight into the right one.

For a second Ron reeled, completely thrown before he remembered. This was Hogwarts. Weirder things happened everyday.

Then the little girl returned.

**Reviews make me happy happy happy! And happy author = happy ending =] **

**Harlequin x**


	3. Chapter 3

**No excuses, please forgive me . . . **

**This is chapter 3 . . . **

_Then the little girl returned._

She stood in front of him like someone out of Ginny's battered copy of Mary Poppins. Her hair hung in two long plaits over her shoulders, their pale tone a stark contrast to the dark grey of her simple, knee-length dress. In her left hand, she clutched a worn teddy bear.

All in all, Ron thought that she was probably about 10 years old when she . . . .

. . . . died . . . .

"Excuse me," he began. Now that he was over the initial shock, it was obvious that she wasn't a very scary ghost, all things considered. He hoped. "Hello . . . have you seen my friend? She ran down here but I think I've lost her now," he continued gently, the last thing he wanted was to startle the girl - she was his only lead.

"The pretty lady?" she said, her voice high pitched but surprisingly strong for someone so insubstantial.

Ron nodded encouragingly. "Yeah, that's her. I need to find her . . . she's very scared at the moment . . ."

"She doesn't have to be scared anymore. She's safe now" monotoned the girl.

"What do you mean?" asked Ron, slightly freaked by how expressionless her face had suddenly become.

"She's safe now. Nothing will ever hurt her again."

"What? . . . . Where is she?" Ron was almost shouting now.

"Why do you care?"

"She's my friend!"

"No she's not. She's my friend now. She doesn't need you anymore."

"NO!" yelled Ron, he was angry and scared and confused, and he had to keep reminding himself that punching a ghost would do him no good at all. "What have you done with her?"

But the little girl just laughed, before spinning around running away up the corridor.

Ron gave chase, hoping against hope that she would lead him to wherever she was keeping Hermione without sliding through any walls or locked doors.

His luck held, and after five exhausting minutes, Ron rounded a corner and was confronted by one of the oddest scenes he'd ever seen - Right there, in the middle of a labyrinth of dank and dark dungeon corridors, was a child's nursery. An actual nursery. With toys and things. Huh.

And in the corner . . . .

"HERMIONE!"

**Please review . . . lovely people xxx**


	4. Chapter 4

**This is the last chapter. Sorry. I'm not entirely happy with how it turned out, but please enjoy . . . **

"_HERMIONE!"_

Ron ran in a half-crouch over to where he could see her leaning back against a wooden, multicoloured rocking-horse.

The little-girl-ghost was nowhere to be seen.

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Ron just shrugged and turned his attention back to Hermione, who was snoring lightly beside him.

"Hermione," he whispered urgently, "Hermione wake up."

"Wha-" she mumbled groggily, right hand moving up automatically to shield her eyes from the bright, pure white light which seemed to be emanating from the walls.

"We've got to go now Hermione."

"Where . . . . where are we?"

"I'm not really sure actually but please get up now . . ." Ron was really starting to worry about where the girl had gotten to.

"What's that noise?"

" . . . ?"

"That noise, it sounds like someone's _crying._"

"What?"

"Yeah . . ." Hermione's voice trailed off as she got to her feet and padded deeper into the bizarre and slightly creepy jungle of childhood debris scattered around the room.

Trying to avoid tripping up or knocking anything over, Ron followed, only to find, sitting on a giant jack-in-the-box, the ghost, hands covering her eyes as pearly tears dripped into her lap.

What the hell ?

Unconsciously conforming to widely held gender stereotypes, Ron immediately backed away whilst Hermione rushed forward.

After an awkward moment when Hermione realised that patting someone on the shoulder only worked if that person had tangible mass.

"Hello . . . umm . . . my name's Hermione . . . what's yours?"

"sniffle . . . sniffle . . . Catharine . . ."

"Hello Catharine, how old are you?"

" . . . Thirteen . . ."

That surprised Ron, she looked a lot younger.

"Why are you crying Catharine?" asked Hermione, sounding remarkably motherly and soothing.

" Well I've been on my own for so long, and then you come to be my friend, but now the mean boy wants to take you away from me and it's not fair!"

She was almost wailing by the end.

As she burst into a fresh wave of tears, Hermione looked back at Ron helplessly. What could they do? She certainly couldn't stay here, however sad Catharine was.

_Urgh, _groaned Ron mentally_, hadn't they had enough of this with Moaning Myrtle?_

Wait . . .

Moving forward, Ron crouched in front of the distraught girl and waited until she looked up out of curiosity and made eye contact.

"Catharine, I think I have an idea, but you're going to have to trust me, okay?"

She nodded faintly.

"Alright then, wait here, and me and Hermione will come back in a couple of hours to take you somewhere where there's someone I think you'll really like."

". . okay . ."

"Good, we'll see you soon then. Come on Hermione . . . Trelawny might notice we're missing and pronounce us dead or something . . ."

It took what felt like hours to find their way back out of the maze of corridors, and all the time neither of them said a word about their tightly interlocking hands.

But when they finally found their class, they were just making their way back to civilization, so their whole adventure must have only taken about fifty minutes.

"Where were you guys?" whispered Harry furiously when they reunited under the bright lights of the entrance hall.

"It's a long story . . ."

A few weeks later, Harry was walking past the door to the infamous second-floor girls' bathroom when Parvati and Luna came out, giggling their heads off.

"Hey, what's going on, I thought Myrtle had made that bathroom unusable?"

"Oh she did, but then Ron introduced her to Catharine, and now it's our favourite loo, they're both so friendly . . ." Parvati said over her shoulder as they hurried off to their next lesson.

_What? Since when did Ron play matchmaker for Moaning Myrtle?_

Harry quickened his pace, for once eager to get to potions so that he could interrogate his best friend about this strange turn of events.

**Fini.**

**Alrighty, that's it people :)**

**Pleaassseee review, it makes my world so much brighter, even if it is the last chapter :)**

**Bye for now!**

**Haunted Harlequin x**


End file.
